Timore et Amore
by StellarSlayer
Summary: "Natsu! Natsu, help! Please!" "Lucy!" Separated in a huge mansion on a mission. Can love bring them together? . . This is my sad attempt at a horror story. I think it turned out pretty good despite that.


"Aaaaaaarrrrggghhh!" A high pitched scream rippled through the dark 4-story mansion.

A pink haired mage paused in his tracks.

"Natsu, what was that?" a flying blue cat asked his companion.

Natsu turned in the direction of the scream. "Lucy!" And off he ran with Happy flying after him.

Down the twists and turns of the halls he ran. Every so often he'd hear Lucy scream, making him more worried, making him run faster.

"Lucy! Lucy, where are you?! Lucy, answer me!" Her screams got louder and more blood-curdling.

Natsu turned down a hallway and stopped. The screaming had come from this direction. And it had stopped. All was silent. At the end of the hall was a room with the door slightly open.

Natsu ran and busted the door the rest of the way open. "Lucy!" Natsu stopped. The room was empty. Empty except for a key ring pouch with the Fairy Tail emblem and keys on the ring. Lucy's keys.

"Natsu! Natsu, help!" the screamed echoed through the mansion and Natsu's ears. Natsu ran. He couldn't tell where the scream had come from. What scared him the most was that pain and hurt was heard in her voice. Happy flew up to Natsu's side, Lucy's keys in his paws.

"Natsu, we have to find her quick. She's practically powerless without her keys and remember how she was upset earlier today because Virgo had to take her celestial whip back to the celestial world to get it repaired and she had left her other whip at home? Natsu, she has absolutely no way to defend herself." Natsu came to a complete stop. "Natsu! What are you doing?! Don't stop! We have to find Lucy!" Natsu sat down with his back to the wall and put his head in his hands. "Natsu?"

"Happy, I can't find her."

"What? Come on. All we need to do is keep—"

"I can't find her. I haven't the slightest clue where her voice came from and I can't even pick up her scent. And I'm… scared. Happy, I'm scared I'm scared for Lucy. I'm scared I won't make it in time. I'm about as scared as I was against Gildarts, except this time I'm actually at risk of losing someone important to me! Happy, all I smell right now is blood. It's covering the whole mansion. That's what makes me more frightened for her."

Happy stayed silent. He'd never known his friend to be truly scared or if he was, he denied it. But here Natsu was confessing that he's scared. Scared for Lucy no less. Right now Happy wanted to say, "You liiiiiike her." Finding that not appropriate for the situation, he said, "You know , Natsu, Lucy is probably even more scared than you are right now."

Natsu looked up at his flying friend, sadness cloaked his eyes. Before Happy could blink, Natsu had started off again. He was going to find her.

"Stupid Natsu. Stupid Happy." The blonde celestial mage shivered as a chilly wind ripped by. "If I had known the job was to search a creepy mansion in the dark of night for something with no description, I would never have agreed to it. What the heck is this 'Timore et Amore' anyways? How dare the employer not give a description. And what was the reward? 'Something better than money or life itself'? What the heck does that even mean?" Lucy looked around the plantation and the corn maze next to it. "And why did the boys get to search inside and make me search outside? It was all luck that I was able to get out of that maze." She brought her hand to her hips to grab her keys. "Oh no! My keys! I must have dropped them somewhere! Aquarius is going to kill me!"

As the blonde started off to the maze again, she saw something moving by in her peripheral vision. "Hmmm? Natsu?" She walked the direction she thought Natsu was. Suddenly she noticed a pathway. Finding it going in the same direction, she followed it. "Neh, Natsu? Where'd you go?" She didn't see him. "You're supposed to be inside looking for 'Timore et Amore' with Happy, not out here trying to scare me." No answer. "Natsu, I really want to Hurry up and get out of here." Again, no answer. "Gah! Fine then! Be that way!" She stalked off down the path.

Lucy followed the path and it brought her to the mansion. The path led to some stairs that spiraled up to a balcony. Lucy made her way up.

When she got up to the balcony, she noticed it was an outside entrance to a huge dark ballroom. Deciding to get out of the cold, Lucy walked up and opened the double doors.

When the double doors were opened wide, it seemed like a fancy ball was going on. When she looked down, she was wearing a deep purple dress. "What the –" There had to be at least two hundred people here, all in fancy dresses or suits, and everyone was wearing a mask. Across the room she saw the exit.

Lucy started pushing her way through the people but found herself in the middle of the dance floor. Suddenly her hands were grabbed and she was pulled into a dance. When she looked up, she saw a tall guy with sleeked-back, black hair who was wearing a bright red mask with gold swirls. Lucy tried to pull out of the man's grasp. "Excuse me, sir, but I don't have time for this. I have to find my friends."

The man smiled. "You mean the pink haired mage and the blue cat. Don't bother looking for them. They're gone."

Lucy's eyes widened. "What do you mean they're 'gone'." Those two were idiots but they would never just leave her.

"Gone as in you will never see them again."

"What?!"

The man chuckled. "Why worry about it? You don't belong with them anyways, Princess. They are powerful yet disgusting misfit mages. You, on the other hand, belong with us. We are strong and powerful through our wealth. Your friends are gone because you are weak."

Lucy pulled out of his grasp. "I am not like you. I left that part of me behind. I'm a misfit mage just like they are. And I am not weak!"

The guys smile turned evil. "Oh really?" The party disappeared. All that was left was the dark ballroom, Lucy, and the guy in the red mask. Lucy, back in her original clothes, was getting scared. She backed up. The guy rushed forward and slapped her across the face, sending her crashing to the floor.

Lucy's hands searched for her keys and her whip. Realizing she didn't have either, she knew she was in trouble. The guy started forward to her. Lucy got up as fast as she could. It wasn't quick enough though. The man pulled her up by her arm and threw her. She landed with a yelp and a thud. Disoriented, she quickly got up and noticed she was closer to the door. She made a break for it. Getting to the door, she pulled at the handle. The doors were locked.

She turned around. The balcony and stair case had disappeared. Her seemingly only way out was through the doors behind her. And the man was advancing on her.

Lucy started banging on the doors. "Natsu! Natsu, please help! Natsu, please!"

The man grabbed her arm and turned her around. "Natsu can't hear you."

"Where's Natsu?"

The man smirked. Then a blood-curdling scream was heard. Lucy had heard this scream before. She heard it when Natsu was having his powers drained in Edolas. Natsu was being tortured. And Lucy yet again couldn't do anything. Lucy looked around for the source. In the back corner on the right side was a door. It had to be coming from there.

He punched her in the stomach with his free hand making her double over in pain. He leaned down to her ear. "If you aren't weak, you aren't scared. Prove it."

Tears were streaming down her face. How was she going to get out of this and get Natsu?

Natsu was about give out. So was Happy. Every time they heard Lucy scream, it came from a different direction. They were now on the 2nd floor planting heavily.

Natsu didn't like this part of the mansion. He was standing across from a ballroom and the walls outside of it were covered with blood.

"Tired, are we?" Natsu jumped and looked down the hall to his right. There stood a man with sleeked-back black hair, wearing a red mask with golden swirls.

"Who are you?" The man just smiled. "Where's Lucy?"

"Gone."

"What?"

"She's gone."

"What do you mean she's gone?"

The man laughed as though Natsu just told a joke. He then took a second to compose himself. "Gone as in…*pause*... you will never see her again."

Natsu rushed the man, flames surrounding his fists. The man sidestepped. Natsu then started throwing punches and kicks, his accuracy not very good from being worn out. "What have you done with Lucy?" The man just kept smiling and dodging.

"What is she to you?" The man asked. He dodged every attack Natsu threw. "She's weak and pathetic. But she's also rich, practically royalty. Way out of your league. She shouldn't even be wasting her time with you filth."

"She's my precious Nakama! Give her back to me!"

"Nakama? Is that what you are? That's too bad. I would've spared her."

The man jumped back and snapped his fingers and down the hall to a room on the left came a blood-curling scream.

"Lucy!" Natsu rushed to the door, Happy right behind him. The scream wasn't stopping this time. Natsu found the door to be locked so he banged it harder and harder. Happy was doing the same before he passed out from using too much magic and just complete exhaustion.

At this point, Lucy was basically being thrown around. She kept hearing Natsu scream. Every once in a while she'd hear him yell, "Lucy! Get out of here! Escape!" She knew escape was impossible now. She finally managed to get up and away from the man. She ran directly for the door in the back corner. It was locked. "Natsu! Natsu!"

"What does that boy mean to you?" Lucy ignored the man and kept banging on the door. "What is he to you? Surely you can go on without him."

Lucy's tears got bigger and she cried harder.

This door wouldn't break down no matter what Natsu tried.

The man laughed. "It's too late. Surely you can go on without her."

Natsu turned around, fire incasing his body. "I CAN'T LOSE HER! I LOVE HER!"

The man wasn't there and the screaming had stopped.

Natsu froze and slowly turned around.

Lucy slid to the ground beside the door, her back against the wall, still crying. "I can't lose him. I love him."

Suddenly the door opened to reveal a scared and worried looking Natsu. The moment he saw her, he dropped to the ground next to her and stared at her face. Slowly, Lucy, still crying, brought a hand up to Natsu's face and caressed it. "You're ok."

Before she could blink, Natsu scooped her up and brought he as close as possible. "I thought I lost you." He was crying.

Natsu put his back against the wall and Lucy in his lap and buried his face in her hair as she buried her face in his chest. He wasn't letting go of her anytime soon.

Lucy heard sniffling. She looked up and saw Happy standing there crying. Lucy opened her arms up and Happy jumped into her chest.

There the three stayed till the morning light show in through the windows. They all had cried themselves to sleep in each other's arms.

A note was found next to them.

"_Dear wizards,_

_Congrats. You have found _Timore et Amore_, fear and love. You were both terrified for the other and found love through that. Your reward: each other. Don't ever let the other go._

_Magic is a powerful thing but love is more powerful."_

**Hey! I actually wrote this on Halloween, but I just typed it up.**

**I like repetitiveness. Can you tell?**

**My other story is on hold for the moment. Sorry everyone! I'll update! I promise!**


End file.
